Education has a unique use case for cybersecurity tools. On one hand educational institutions must purchase tools for qualified cybersecurity professionals to protect their networks and on the other they must procure tools to teach their pupils in any related courses. Cobalt Strike has partnered with Zero point security to be a one-stop-shop for all levels of training needs, covering present day and future red teamers.

Red Team Operators in Educational Institutions

To adhere to federal cybersecurity requirements of universities, programs must be compliant with NIST Cybersecurity Framework and FedRAMP, along with observing CISA Red Team Assessment advisories, universities must have a strong, well-resourced red team.

Cobalt Strike has partnered with Zero Point to help institutions upskill and reskill the employees in their arsenal to ensure a strong understanding of their attack surface as well as fast-paced incident response.

Security Courses for Accredited University Cybersecurity Programs

Students gain hands-on experience with Cobalt Strike, the industry-standard command-and-control framework used by professional red teams, government agencies, and major enterprises worldwide, within a curriculum designed for progressive skill development and practical assessment.

Read on to receive a practical guide on the integration of Zero Point’s Red Team Ops Training I & II, as well as Cobalt Strike Certified Operator Training into accredited university cybersecurity curriculums.

The Fortra–Zero Point Security partnership creates a unique value proposition for higher education: a strong training program to craft university student curriculum around, as well as training on the industry leading tool for your the red team operators covering your attack surface. Created by CREST-approved training operator Zero‑Point Security, these Red Team Operations trainings specialize in offensive security, red team operations, and adversary emulation, with a strong emphasis on real‑world tradecraft.

Institutional Value Proposition

For Students

  • Industry-recognized certifications: CRTO and CRTL credentials are recognized by hiring managers for junior to senior red team roles 
  • Hands-on Cobalt Strike experience: The only way to gain legitimate, licensed access to the industry’s premier C2 framework in an educational setting 
  • Lifetime course access: Students retain access to continuously updated material after graduation, creating ongoing professional development value 
  • Career readiness: Direct alignment to NICE Framework Work Roles means students can articulate job-relevant competencies to employers 

 

For Institutions

  • CAE designation support: Pre-mapped to CAE-CO Knowledge Units to streamline accreditation applications and renewals 
  • Reduced development cost: Turnkey course content, labs, and assessments eliminate the need to build offensive security curriculum from scratch 
  • CREST recognition: Zero Point Security’s status as a CREST-approved training provider adds external validation to academic programs 
  • Purple team bridge: Built-in detection engineering components serve both offensive and defensive program tracks simultaneously 
  • Differentiated recruiting: Offering Cobalt Strike training creates a distinctive selling point vs. peer institutions 

Red Teaming: Curriculum Supplements

This section provides a comprehensive framework for integrating Fortra’s Cobalt Strike Introductory Training and Zero Point Security’s Red Team Ops (RTO) and Red Team Ops II (RTO II) courses into accredited university cybersecurity programs. It offers three distinct integration models—course supplementation, standalone courses, and a full multi-course specialization track—each mapped to the standards universities and accreditors rely on most: NIST NICE Workforce Framework, NSA/ DHS CAE Knowledge Units, MITRE ATT&CK Framework and Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Source Course Components

Red Team Operator Training I

This course teaches adversary simulation and red team ops in a multi-forest Active Directory lab environment using Cobalt Strike as the C2. Core Modules inlcude:

  • Methodology, planning, rules of engagement
  • Team server setup, listener types, Beacon management
  • Password spraying, phishing payloads (MS Office)
  • Enumeration, UAC bypass, scheduled tasks, services
  • Mimikatz, NT hashes, Kerberos keys, SAM, DCC2, DCSync, password cracking
  • Kerberoasting, unconstrained delegation, ADCS abuse, trust exploitation
  • SMB, WMI, WinRM, DCOM, pass-the-hash, pass-the-ticket
  • Golden/Silver Tickets, domain trust abuse, forest compromise
  • Detection awareness, OPSEC considerations per technique
  • Bypassing Microsoft Defender Antivirus
  • ELK/Splunk KQL detection queries for blue team awareness

Red Team Operator Training II

The advanced continuation of RTO focusing on OPSEC tactics and defense bypass strategies against modern enterprise endpoint controls. Core Modules Include:

  • Resilient on-premise C2 with cloud redirectors, HTTPS, and failover strategies
  • Offensive use of Win32 APIs from C++ and C#
  • PPID spoofing, command line spoofing, various injection techniques
  • Memory indicator cleanup, in-memory obfuscation
  • Enumeration and exploitation of ASR policy weaknesses
  • Policy analysis and bypass techniques
  • Circumventing ETW, userland hooking, and kernel callbacks

Cobalt Strike Certified Operator Training I (CSCO I)

This foundational course covers the complete lifecycle of a red team engagement through written modules, graphics, videos, and guided labs.

Core Modules:

  • Adversary emulation vs. simulation and the attack lifecycle
  • Architecture, client interface, command basics, and Aggressor Script essentials
  • Staged vs. stageless payloads and execution methods
  • Proficiency with post-exploit commands and techniques
  • Built-in elevation options and techniques
  • Windows authentication for remote access across networks
  • Techniques for bypassing network restrictions
  • Customizing Beacon’s network traffic indicators
  • Configuring Beacon’s reflective loading process
  • Extending Cobalt Strike with custom functionality

Cobalt Strike Certified Operator Training II (CSCO II)

Currently in development, the sequel to Cobalt Strike Certified Operator Training I will be available in 2027.

Why Cobalt Strike?

Fortra’s Cobalt Strike is leveraged by red teams industry-wide to launch realistic simulated attacks, establishing persistence and capturing information using the same tactics, techniques, and procedures as today’s advanced adversaries.  

Cobalt Strike Capabilities 

Using covert channels and powerful post-exploitation agents, Cobalt Strike can imitate an embedded actor within your network. Malleable C2 enabling network indicators keep teams on their toes with the ability to emulate different malware. This makes it difficult to detect or design traditional firewall defenses against.

Bundled with Outflank Security Tooling, Fortra’s red teaming can help government agencies and public sector entities “simulate similar techniques to what some APTs and Organized Crime Groups apply but are not available in public tools.”

Cobalt Strike Features 

  1. Arsenal Kit Customizable tools that users can modify to better emulate real-world techniques, such as custom reflective loaders and an LLVM mutator to break in-memory YARA scanning of sleeping masks.
  2. Covert Communication Malleable C2 profiles, peer-to-peer connections via TCP or SMB, and the ability to egress networks using HTTP, HTTPS, and DNS.
  3. Post-Exploitation Beacon, Cobalt Strike’s signature payload, gathers information, deploys additional payloads, executes arbitrary commands, and more, just like a real attacker would.
  4. Payload Generation Users can customize payloads through Cobalt Strike to best meet their specific needs.

This list is just the beginning. Additional Cobalt Strike features include interoperability with Fortra’s penetration tool Core Impact and Outflank, compatibility with personalized tools and techniques, collaboration with fellow red teamers via team servers, timelines reports, and more.

Blue Team Benefits  

Every red team engagement not only helps identify security gaps and shore up defenses but expressly benefits the blue teams tasked with defending educational entities and the data they protect. By safely testing with red team attacks in real time, blue teams can better analyze potential attack paths and techniques, build bespoke mitigation measures, and implement better-suited monitoring and detection mechanisms so that those techniques will not work again.

In the real world, these improvements are hard-won and typically only come at the back end of a very costly attack. Thanks to red teaming, teams can benefit from this invaluable knowledge without paying the price of a data breach for it.

Learn More About Cobalt Strike

Want to learn more? Dive into Fortra’s Cobalt Strike, one of the first public red team command and controls frameworks, in this in-depth on-demand demo. Or request a live demo of Cobalt Strike for a more hands-on experience you can test with your team. And don’t forget to check out our Red Team Suite to see what Cobalt Strike can do when combined with our curated set of offensive security tools, Outflank Security Tooling (OST).

Be prepared with Cobalt Strike

Red teaming can uniquely prepare educational institutions by leveraging all methods of attack available to threat actors; from spear phishing executives to pretexting, phishing campaigns, AI-generated voice calls, hidden ransomware links,  and more. However, public sector red teaming requires proper tools.  

Fortra’s Cobalt Strike, a sophisticated threat emulation tool, can be utilized by security teams of any maturity level to perform their own red team engagements and adversary simulations. It not only tests internal defenses but informs blue teams of security issues, so they are better prepared.